Monday, December 03, 2007

One Week

It's so close. It's so close...

I have one more week to go until it's time to take another real deep breath. Sure, I'll have to sit in class on either next Monday or Wednesday and defend my lousy long feature. But it'll be done with, as will the chunk of my thesis that's due, the last newspaper story of the semester and my 10+ page paper explaining just how to save the planet through sustainable development. I intend to drink, piddle around, buy Christmas presents and fly home. In that order, with possible recidivism.

I'll say this about the planet's problems: though they may be deep to the point of insolubility, their sheer preponderance supplies plenty of writing material. And it's academic writing, so it doesn't have to be good. Just present.

The big snowstorm finally got to New England last night and today. I broke my umbrella, so I'm drying off. I've been thinking a lot lately about when it's OK to cheap out and when it's not. At the grocery store, the cheapest milk is just fine, but don't buy the generic brand macaroni and cheese. I was eyeballing kitchen utensils at an outlet shop I must have walked past two dozen times en route to Central Square but only recently went in; everything was 99 cents, but for some things the reason was obvious. I couldn't remember having actually owned my own umbrella, so I bought one at the Union about a month ago. Today I destroyed it. The plastic catch was bad and it rarely opened without a fight. After such a fight this afternoon I swung it against a marble column and did in the cheap son of a bitch.

But the snowstorm -- I'm pleased. When I uncover my mind from this semester next week, I need to buy new boots. But new boots are great, and acting as a reason to buy them is just another reason snow is a great form of precipitation, especially next to its bastard cousins rain and sleet.

I'm going to go watch the dumb ESPN talk shows as my daily respite for thinking. Then its work time, until about 10 when I won't be able to think anymore. Then the clock turns to dinosaur time, when the Pabst flows like wine.

And one last thing about Mike Huckabee -- I totally forgot that he used to be fat until I saw the Slate feature today. Way to go, Mike. We may not be best buds, but at least you'll live until the presidential election. Also, it's great evidence of first impressions; Slate linked to pictures of them side by side, fat Mike and slender Mike, and I was much less given to a knee-jerk reaction against slender Mike.

2 comments:

Elissa said...

Do you have any ideas for a relatively inexpensive present for Brandon?

Anonymous said...

i'm singing queen, duran duran, hank williams and thinking about you!